GIACOMO PIUSSI “Friends of friends” Oil on Canvas OPENING RECEPTION

he Robin Rice Gallery is pleased to announce Giacomo Piussi’s new exhibition, Friends of friends”. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, July 12th, from 5 pm to 7 pm.

We are very excited for you to meet Giacomo Piussi. He will be here at the Opening Reception, and has traveled from his hometown, Florence, Italy!

“Friends of friends” explores a playful world where dreams and reality meld together to create surreal moments. When engaging with Piussi’s work, we enter an arena where we are immersed in childlike delight. We experience snapshot images of a world reduced to its essence, in a seemingly comic-book style that has echoes of Giotto and Paolo Uccello, and even of medieval illuminations.

My work is simple: the subject matter is stripped to basics, so all that is engagement, controversy, and links to reality is taken away, and what remains is an icon with an aura of philosophical suspension. The drawings on which the paintings are built from are precise and have the same aim as those made by cavemen, which was to give a shape to their desires, their dreams.

The broad repertoire of his paintings, with their naturalistic color and semi-abstract shapes, presents us with Piussi’s views concerning our contemporary lives. Rather than mimic the appearance of nature, Piussi reaches for its essence, in visions that are devoid of distracting details.

Piussi was born in 1967 in Udine and raised in Florence, where he majored in sculpture at the Institute d’Arte. He completed his artistic education at Milano’s Brera Art Academy, where he majored in painting. Piussi went on to live in Florence, where he now pursues his passion for painting, bronze, terracotta sculpture, and bas-reliefs. Giacomo Piussi has exhibited in Florence, Rome, Milan, and Berlin.  He recently exhibited at the Palazzo Pretorio Museum in the exhibition entitled “L’ordine delle cose, viaggio in Italia” in 2023. After numerous group shows at the Robin Rice Gallery, this is his second solo exhibition.